History

An ancient settlement of the Livs and Kurs, Riga emerged as a trading post in the late 12th century. Seagoing ships found a natural harbour where the small Ridzene River once flowed into the Daugava, a major trade route to points east and south from the Viking Age onward. Albert of Buxhoevden arrived in 1199 with 23 ships of Crusaders and established the military Order of the Brothers of the Sword (reorganized in 1237 as the Livonian Order, a branch of the Teutonic Order). The city of Riga, founded in 1201, was the seat of Albert’s bishopric (archbishopric in 1253) and a base for conquering the lands of Livonia to the northeast, Courland to the west, and Semigallia to the south. The city joined the Hanseatic League in 1282 and became the dominant centre of trade on the Baltic Sea’s eastern shore. The Reformation gained a foothold in Riga in the 1520s; the Livonian Order was secularized, and, along with the Livonian Confederation, dissolved in 1561.

The population grew exponentially in the 1800s, spurred by the 1817–19 abolition of serfdom in Lifland and Kurland as well as by the expansion of railroads (1861). The city’s manufacturing sector expanded to include foundries and machine works, shipbuilding yards, and factories that produced railroad cars, electric appliances, chemicals, and, from the early 1900s, automobiles and airplanes. The removal of Riga’s medieval fortress walls began in 1857 to speed business, and a railroad bridge across the Daugava was built in 1872. Railroads also made it possible for Latvians to travel from across the country to the first Latvian national song festival, organized in 1873 by the Riga Latvian Society. Telegraph (1852) and telephone (1882) connected Riga’s citizens to the world, and modernizing infrastructure, such as gasworks (1862) and a centralized electrical supply (1905), improved the quality of life for Rigans.

On the eve of World War I, Riga was the Russian Empire’s third largest city, with a population of 517,000. From 1915 to 1917, however, one of the war’s front lines lay along the Daugava, resulting in heavy damage on both shores; hundreds of thousands were relocated into Russia, and 400 factories were evacuated with all their machinery, never to return.

Latvia’s independence was declared in Riga on November 18, 1918, and the city became the new republic’s capital. With the Russian border closed to eastern trade, the port’s transit role declined, but its agricultural and timber exports became the core of the national economy. Industry shifted to consumer goods, among them the world’s smallest camera, the VEF Minox. The ķegums hydroelectric power station was completed 30 miles (roughly 50 km) upstream in 1939, and domestic and international flights to Riga’s airport began in the 1920s. The University of Latvia, the Art Academy of Latvia, and the Latvian Conservatoire (now the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music) were established in 1919–22, and the Latvian Open-Air Ethnographic Museum (1924) was just one example of the repositories of national history and culture to appear in the 1920s. Public education tripled the number of municipal schools in the city, serving a diverse ethnic population with instruction in nine languages. Among Riga’s Germans was Paul Schiemann, a leader of the European minorities movement and framer of Latvia’s laws on cultural autonomy for minorities. A large community of Russian refugees made Riga a critical listening post for Western intelligence regarding the Soviet Union.

Latvia was occupied and annexed by the Soviets in 1940, and Riga lost thousands of people in 1940–41 to Soviet deportations and executions. NaziGermany occupied the city from 1941 to 1944 during World War II, making it the administrative capital of Ostland, a territory encompassingEstonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus. More than 25,000 of the city’s Jews were imprisoned in the Riga ghetto, shot in the Rumbula forest, and buried in mass graves on November 29–30 and December 8–9, 1941. The Soviets returned in October 1944, and for the next four decades Riga was the Soviet Baltic Military District’s command post. The population vacuum created by war deaths, emigration, and deportations was filled by Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians who settled the Baltic region as part of a Soviet internal immigration policy that continued through the 1980s. The city was made a Soviet leader in metalworking as well as in the production of railroad cars and electronics. Riga’s hydroelectric power station went online in 1974.

Latvia declared renewed independence in May 1990, mobilizing nonviolent resistance to achieve that goal in August 1991. Monuments near Riga’s canal mark the spot where five civilians were killed by Soviet soldiers during the independence struggle. Latvia was admitted to the United Nations in autumn 1991 and joined the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance in 2004. Riga hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2003, the NATO summit in 2006, and Latvia’s EU presidency in 2015.

The contemporary city

Today Riga’s port facilitates export and transit trade from Russia and Belarus to European ports and beyond; a daily ferry carries passengers and cars to Stockholm. The Via Baltica highway is a major trucking route to Tallinn, Kaunas, and Warsaw. Riga International Airport is the hub of the national airline, airBaltic, and is served by daily flights to most European countries. Riga’s factories, many of them now affiliates of transnational corporations, build and repair ships, machine tools, rolling stock, diesel engines, and streetcars. Biotechnology and information technology are growing economic sectors, and services, notably tourism, are increasingly important. Riga’s municipal government is typically formed by a coalition of diverse political parties. The city’s Russian community, which accounted for some two-fifths of Riga’s population in the early 21st century, maintains strong ties to Russia, and it was instrumental in electing the city’s first ethnic Russian mayor in 2009.

The historic centre of Riga was designated a UNESCOWorld Heritage site in 1997. Many medieval buildings survive, among them the 13th-century Riga Dom (cathedral), the 14th-century Riga Castle (1330), and merchants’ homes and warehouses. The canal around the city’s Old Town was the fortress moat. Nearby, many elaborate facades in the Jugendstil artistic style testify to Riga’s wealth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among the public buildings that were renovated in the 1990s was the National Opera, first built as the Riga German Theatre in 1863. The 14th-century House of Blackheads, damaged during World War II and razed in 1954, was rebuilt in 2000. Early 21st-century construction included high-rise towers, a hockey stadium that hosted the 2006 Ice Hockey World Championship, and the National Library, completed 2013.

Among Riga’s best-known institutions of higher education are the Riga Stradiņš University, Riga Technical University, and the University of Latvia. Numerous world-class performers began their careers at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music. Tens of thousands of people converge on Riga’s Meaparks choral stage every five years for a celebration of Latvian heritage in song. In 2003 UNESCO proclaimed the song and dance festival, along with similar events in Estonia and Lithuania, to be masterpieces of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity.